2014 Challenge

checking in late day 137...Have a good week everyone..

Morning troops!!

Sorry for not updating the front page this week or indeed for hardly posting.......priority was my daughters 4th birthday party yesterday......and with a typically wet Scottish afternoon, 25 sub 5 year olds and it taking place in the house there was a lot of contingency to put in place.....and even more tidying up to be done!!

Now that it's all sorted I'm going to make a start on the update......so all of you naughty individuals who were late checking in are forgiven!! Will add you now!!

mjc - not aware of an app.......but gamcare, there's a fantastic idea right there!!

Give me a couple of hours or so and update will be on - promise I'll be back on track for midweek this coming - I'm away for a couple of days with work.

Speak soon soldiers!

Mr B

Hi everyone , sorry for the extremely late check in , 6 days and counting should be 18 but due to a slight failing last weekend it put me back t square one . Hope everyone else is doing well

WE CAN DO THIS

Morning everyone, checking in today...day 22 and still going strong 🙂 havnt even had the urge to visit any sites but again its only been 22 days but i keep my thoughts about my daughters birthday coming up in just a few weeks and if i want to make her little dream come true then gambling is a no. so i plan on making it happen 🙂

Well done GamAddict, very wise being cautious after only 22 days, my last relapse was after 35 days and I had very few thoughts about gambling up to that point. Always handy to keep a reason why your doing this at the front of your brain. Mine is a 2 week holiday that I have coming up in 20 days and will be almost 50 days clean when it comes around and hoping to have money to spend on it. Guard up, stay strong, we can all do this.

Happy Sunny Sunday everyone!! This is week 29 of the year……..23 to go before the challenge ends…….and the 2015 challenge will begin!!

It’s been a pretty mental week - home and work! It’s been a good week for the Challenge though - lots of activity, some superb answers to the latest survey questions (thanks to everyone who’s posted their responses so far - there’s one more week to answer them) and some of our best stats for a while. If I’m honest, I’m getting really impatient for us to hit our magic 50 member number, but this week we have made other significant breakthroughs as 1 team in our collective battle against gambling. It seemed to take ages to break through the 40 person mark……….and then in one week it just shot through and stayed there…….we just can't seem to get beyond the mid 40’s as it stands.

In the update this week we have standard items of headlines, milestones (past and coming up), roll of honour, returning soldiers and of course the overall tally. There’s also a reminder of the challenge questions, which enter their second and final week. The spotlight from the “other side” which I’ve asked Mother Brightside to write is going to go on separately during the week - I don’t want it to get lost in amongst a standard update - I’m going to put it on on Wednesday evening.

Headlines for the Week

There’s a few significant things to cover off in the headlines this week. With Batman returning to the fold, we now have 20 members in the Century Club!! As Scambling said during the week, I too remember when we were celebrating our first Century Club member…….then the rest have slowly followed - what an amazing effort!! To compliment this, our average days per person is exactly 97.5 days gamble free…….which essentially means if the 44 of us who will march into the new week all check in then we are all protecting a century of days each by Wednesday!! As mentioned, we start the week with 45 soldiers which is 2 more than last week - the breakdown of this is pretty straightforward………..43 started the week, we had 2 soldiers not managing to check in and we found 4 soldiers who came back to base safely. We had a superb retention rate of 95% this week……the first in a while we’ve been over 90%!! Surprisingly, this will be the first week in goodness knows how long that we don’t welcome any brand new soldiers to the team. The efforts of the newer soldiers needs to be noted - you guys are doing amazing and are fair racking up the days now!

Welcome back to……..

Batman, Time4Reform, Stephen2105 and Strange!! Great to see you guys back with us after a short period of absence and even better to see that the gamble free days continue to mount. Stephen - it’s especially to see you here again soldier - was worried about you. That’s over a week in the bank now and will be great to see you marching towards big numbers!

Missing Soldiers………

I don’t often call out soldiers who have been missing for a while, but I do want to mention 3 soldiers who have played a really important role since the Challenge began…………babybluesky has been a mainstay, but missing for a couple of weeks now - hope you are doing OK fine quine and that you return to is soon. Hardtimes - Linda, going to mention you again - I just don’t think you realise the impact you’ve had on the group and on the site - please drop us a note to say hi! Sonic Boom - your energy was superb…….would be great to have you back, regardless if a slip has taken place.

Special Mentions………..

We used to have the weekly awards……and I’m going to resurrect them for one week only, with 2 special mentions………

GamAddict - I think you are doing exactly what newer members should be……….regular check ins, expressing feelings, showing huge commitment to the team and to your recovery - I wanted to call this out and say thanks and well done.

Baggins - I want an excuse to mention you every week…….you are the Lady!! Happy Birthday from yesterday……hope the boat ride and the time spent in London was fun!! Thanks again for your amazing contributions to this group and for your support of me………I still want to meet you, and I’m sure many many more will feel the same!!

The Questions to be Answered………

Over the course of the next week, I’d ask that along with your check in, you post about what your main problem gambling area was AND what 1 or 2 things you would recommend to someone with the same problem area would be in order to stop.

We’ve already begun to build a level of intelligence about effective stopping techniques, but they have been broad advice for stopping in general - if we can gather more specific evidence for online or football or horses or FOBT’s then we give people like us who are starting their journeys so much more of a chance to succeed in their recovery.

Some of the answers so far are absolutely incredible and I’m sure will resonate with everyone who shared that “type” of gambling. The things that’s really struck me is the evolutions we have nearly all gone through, but in particular, the “bingo to online bingo to online slots to problem gambling” flow that is so evident in many. For those of you who have responded with this form of gambling already, what was it that took you to the online slots part of the sites you were playing bingo on? By chance, was it an offer of free games that kicked off the slot playing?

I will assess the responses later in the coming week and summarise them for next Sunday’s update.

Milestones Celebrated in the Week………

Lots of celebrations took place in the week just past. Here they are:-

Richy244 became only the second ever soldier to achieve 250 days free - well done richy - hope you had a better week!

Bornagain celebrated 30 weeks of being clean with a trip to the Open Golf - hope today sees the climax you’re looking for…….not sure there will be any catching Rory!! No doubt you and Del will dissect the outcomes in a few weeks time!!

Baggins hit the 20 week mark today!! Birthday yesterday and 20 weeks GF today - if Carlsberg made weekends!!

Gladsdad joined the ranks of the Century Club and earned his stripes as the 20th member of this exclusive group! Well done that man!

help2604 and Strange both broke into double digits of weeks clean - more than 70 days folks - absolutely superb and now on the march to a quarter of a year and the Century Club!!

John64, fitzy, StoneRoses and mjc1974 all crossed the very significant mark of half a Century. That’s you guys statistically navigated the stormy waters of the first 7 weeks of recovery. Habit should be broken and looking forward to the future!! Well done everyone!!

Milestones coming up this week…………….and slightly further into the future!!

It’s a busy week for milestones……they seem to be coming thick and fast now……maybe a sign of how well this group is doing!!!

Here’s the days and celebrations:-

Monday 21st July - ToBeOrNot marches onto 150 days gamble free!

Tuesday 22nd July - LIFESWINNER………..I’m a bit emotional about this one……..50 days clean!! Seriously, I know how much this will mean to you and how significant it is. It’s the first of many LW…….we’re all very very very proud to be walking this journey with you mate!!

Wednesday 23rd July - KickitNow and Julio both reach 20 weeks free, while NoCrisis moves onto 10 weeks and into double digits!! Really well done team!!

Friday 24th July - lostafortune hits the big 20 week mark and Wolf57 reaches the half Century!! Big big numbers folks!! Superb going!!

Saturday 25th July - Time4Reform breaks through onto 13 weeks and celebrates a quarter of a year! Well done T4R!!

Sunday 26th July - a week today Daz71 moves onto 10 weeks gamble free, while Charlie1720 hits the half century and onto the run of big milestones!! Congrats soldiers!!

Tuesday 12th August - Del79 will celebrate 365 days clean - ONE YEAR OF FREEDOM!!! It’s getting closer and closer!! Woop Woop!!

Friday 15th August - Del’s “One Year Clean” party will take place at a location in Scotland’s finest city - the host city for the Commonwealth that starts this week!! I am aware of 3 members of the team who will be there - Del (thankfully!), bornagain and myself! I’m not going to be putting the location in Glasgow on this site, but will email anyone who fancies coming along - email me on [email protected] if you’d like to join us!!

The Roll of Honour………….

Here is the list of the marvellous men and women who make up the 2014 Challenge Army and the days we have all stopped gambling for………

Name Clean Days

bornagain 215

Happy Days 220

lostafortune 135

Mr Brightside 224

Del79 342

rst187togo 29

Hitthefan 169

Baggins 140

ToBeOrNot 149

triangle 129

Scambling 225

Kickitnow 137

NoCrisis 67

ringerbell 129

delboygolf 122

Drew2002 112

Gladsdad 106

Batman 157

Pinky333 34

Strange 72

Wolfgang 110

Mo 32

help2604 75

Time4Reform 85

Shorty8 120

julio 137

Daz71 63

John64 51

D70 57

Mileend 22

Stephen2105 10

Fitzy 56

LIFESWINNER 48

Wolf57 45

charlie1720 43

richy 244 252

onlineplayer 38

StoneRoses 51

Elfie17 27

Matty21 29

GamAddict 21

SuzyLemon 38

Believer 6

markieb10 7

mjc1974 54

Drum roll………total days free of gambling since the Challenge began……….

7690 Days = 0.3845 million GBP in our pockets………………..0 GBP in the bookies!!!

That’s the update for this week then folks - next week will be the summaries of questions and don’t forget that midweek will see the Spotlight from Mother Brightside! Get yourself logged in to see that or make sure if you’re checking in after that to flick back on pages to see what pearls of wisdom she has to offer!!

Check in is now open for w/c 21st July…….the last full week of this month!

Hope you all have a great and gamble free week - remember I’ll be quiet until midweek and I expect to seeing lots of check ins before then!! 😉

Mr Brightside

Checking in on day 122

Checking in on Day 140 (hic!) halfway through my birthday weekend. Thank you Mr B for your good wishes - had a fab day yesterday on my speedboat ride. Wheeee! Went for the Ursula Andress outfit after all, but the effect a bit spoiled by the standard issue waterfproofs and lifejacket.... 82 degrees on the South Bank - sorry Mr B - a bit different from old Glasgae Toon! Hope you have now recovered from Little Miss B's party....

Now for the serious stuff: in answer to your secondary question re. the evolution from online bingo to slots....I just got bored with waiting for the numbers to come up, and to be honest, fed up with the people playing and all their silly comments. I found the slots more fun, and I was only playing against myself (or so I thought - hadn't yet figured out that I was playing against the mega-might of the gambling site!). I soon found that non-bingo sites suited me better, and some of the animated slots were quite clever and amusing. To coin a phrase (Bingo!) - I was hooked and with a one-way ticket to Palookaville. It will be interesting to see your further analysis when other answers come in.

Finally, so many milestones to take in, but congratulations to everyone! Mr B - I could hear old 'Fluff' Freeman's voice doing the count-down on 'Pick of the Pops' when reading your list. You might have to ask Mother Brightside about that... Looking forward to reading Mama B's input.

Best wishes to all and .. OK just another glass of Prosecco if someone can help me up...

Joanna

Checking in on day 29 after surviving 3 days off work and not once thinking about gambling. Keeping busy is the key, life music really starting to turn up now and financial worry music coming down especially as I approach my next pay day in less than two weeks.

Keep up the great progress everyone.

Rst.

checking in this week

day 129

thanks for the support everyone

tc tri

Ooops I am so sorry I missed check in!

I am busy packing for my holiday and trying to make sure two teenagers have packed everything, so my attention has been elsewhere.

Mr b could you please check in for me next week as I will not be able to do this?

I am still not gambling and I am a happy luckygirl!!!

Keep strong everyone.

LG x

good morning everyone.

my triggers seem to be when money is tight (I know right, money tight so why not spend more!) when I'm poorly (this tends to be big style as having to have extended time from work, therefore causing the first trigger) and boredom.

I have noticed that I seem to be obsessive about other things since I stopped with anything that I find an interest in whether it is reading a book in full with no breaks, cooking up a storm (according to my hubby I need to find an obsessive streak with housework or exercise lol).

to help me I have joined a gym so I'm not at home by myself so much. I've just purchased an academic diary running from 28 july 2014 - 02 august 2015 to write down my thoughts and feelings.

my hubby is in control of my savings and has access to my bank account with me showing him the bank statements online as well as paper copies, payslips and grocery bill and any other shopping.

I have changed my email address and mobile phone number to stop all the messages coming through. my hubby also has my email address linked to his phone so that any messages I receive will go to his phone as well.

I have been completely open with my family, friends and even co workers and my employer. I am very lucky to have a very large support system that I can contact day or night.

I also joined this group as it helps to talk to others in the same situation and also sometimes you need a stranger to talk to.

so this is me checking in on day 54 (7 weeks 5 days)

best wishes everyone. WE CAN DO IT!!!!

Day 52 just checking in - past the 50 day mark ! superb, need to stay strong and not gamble

Check in at day 35 🙂

Hi Everybody

Checking in on day 28. A very happy belated birthday Baggins - not your 111th birthday is it?

Have been so busy but have managed to catch up with all the recent challenge posts and I am so impressed with the length of time some of you have been GF. I nearly had a moment on Thursday as it was payday and there was money in the bank. Although that money is needed for other things the thought of gambling was there. Luckily, with computer block in place and ipad gone to a new home I was not able to gamble. Hopefully as time goes by the urge to gamble will go.

Mr B, you asked about the transition from online bingo to slots and I can only think that for me was the fact that I never liked bingo (all that dibbing and dabbing) as it is too slow so slots was a natural progression. Quicker to win money or, as it turned out, quicker to lose money. I am not interested in any other form of gambling which is a relief.

Anyways, still GF and looking forward to the next 4 weeks.

Will update diary soon.

Hope you all have a good GF week.

Elfie